IN PERSON; Laugh Early and Often

By ROBERT STRAUSS

Published: October 31, 2004

NEVER mind a good five-cent cigar, what this country really needs is a good nudge in the ribs.

But the presidential campaign of 2004 -- the first since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- has squelched much of what usually passes for political humor. The most the presidential candidates seem to be able to muster is a sardonic smile. Such is the tenor of the campaign that it has transformed Comedy Central into a serious network. Al Franken, Jon Stewart and Dennis Miller used to be comedians. Now they are pundits.

So, enter Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, the Jibjab boys.

In July, the two Marlboro High School graduates, who are now in their 30's and running an Internet-based animation and creative marketing firm, put together an animated song parody of the Woody Guthrie standard ''This Land Is Your Land.'' They merely put it up on their Web site, www.jibjab.com, to see what kind of audience it could find.

As the final moments of the campaign come, the song, and a September-made companion to the tune of ''Dixie,'' have had just shy of 70 million hits, making them a certified election-year phenomenon.

''Really, we were motivated strictly to make people laugh,'' Gregg Spiridellis said by phone from the Jibjab studio in Los Angeles. ''That and to get the Jibjab name out there and get some buzz for our small studio.''

The buzz has turned into millions of snorts, belly laughs and guffaws.

''This Land'' begins with George Bush at a map singing, ''This Land Is Your Land'' and misspelling John Kerry's home state, ''Mass-Uh-Chew-Sits.''

A somewhat more dour and patrician-voiced Mr. Kerry then gets to have his rejoinder: ''You can't say nuclear. That really scares me. Sometimes a brain can come in quite handy.''

Politicians of all stripes get their comeuppance in ''This Land'' and ''Good to Be in D.C.,'' the ''Dixie'' parody. Bill Clinton has his arms tentacled around buxom women, gets smacked by Hillary and, nonplussed, says, ''What did I do?'' Dick Cheney calls up his buddies at Haliburton, the firm where he was chief executive before becoming vice president, from the Oval Office and asks for money. Arnold Schwarzenegger appears fully armed and ready for Terminator duty. Governor McGreevey flits across the screen in a lavender T-shirt and diapers while proclaiming his homosexuality.

''I don't think all of those 70 million hits are the typical 21-and-under people you think of as online types,'' said William Lutz, a professor of English at Rutgers-Camden and a commentator on humor and language, noting that even the least bit of humor is welcome among all voters these days. ''The first one is a lot better, with just the right tone, but it is always harder to have a sequel.

''But this far outstrips the late-night comics. They have been weak. In order to be good in an election season, you have to take a chance at being offensive and they just aren't. What's good about this is that it is evenhanded and serious about its humor. It's dark. It's seriously funny.''

Jay Leno caught wind of ''This Land'' soon after the Spiridellises uploaded it in July and showed it on his ''Tonight'' show. He challenged them to make another one, which became, ''Good to Be in D.C.,'' which came online in late September.

Evan Spiridellis is the art guy of the two, while Gregg is the writer. Gregg, 33, went to Rutgers University, majoring in finance, and later worked on Wall Street in investment banking. Evan, 30, went to Parsons School of Design in Manhattan and took commercial art jobs in the city after graduating.

Gregg Spiridellis left Wall Street to get a master's degree in business administration at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in the late 1990's. One day in 1999, Evan visited him in Philadelphia and Gregg showed him a streaming video on his computer of a cartoon by the ''Ren and Stimpy'' creator John Kricfalusi.

''It was a dancing dog doody across a front lawn,'' said Evan Spiridellis, giggling. ''It was silly, but what it made us realize is that there was the potential to get a creative product out there without distribution people getting so involved in ruining the creative process.''

The brothers went into business together and eventually moved to Los Angeles, which is home to the computer animation community. They created break-dancing cowboys for a Sony online advertising campaign and made the Banana Grabber, the mascot for the family business on Fox's ''Arrested Development,'' among other commercial projects.

In 2000, they did an animation, less refined than the current ones, of Mr. Bush and his then-opponent Al Gore, doing a rap contest. On the last weekend of the campaign, it aired on Fox's ''Mad TV,'' but by the time most people were aware of it, the campaign was over.

Then came a set of rapping revolutionaries for the History Channel's series on Founding Fathers. ''I'm getting chilly down in Philly,'' raps Ben Franklin to a scratchy D.J. turntable beat. ''I'm as ancient as a mariner. I still get down. I get electric when I fly my kite.''

Last year, they tried again, with a California-recall, spoken-word parody entitled ''Ahhnold for Governor,'' which was shown at the Sundance Film Festival.

None of the parodies have made the brothers money, but they have served as calling cards to get more commercial, and possibly artistic, business for Jibjab.

''We're sifting through offers now, but we're definitely going to take our time,'' Evan Spiridellis said. ''It's exciting to think that people have seen this and want to do business with us. A new 'Simpsons,' that would be nice, but we can't count on something like that.''

In the main, political operatives on both sides have good words for the parodies.

''In a tough race like this, we all need a diversion,'' said William Palatucci, the former head of Bush 2000 in New Jersey and the finance director for the state Republican party. ''I thought they did a great job of being evenhanded. There is plenty to skewer on both sides.''

Mark Nevins, a Kerry for President spokesman, agreed: ''It breaks the tension of the campaign. We think they are funny, so they will vote for us.''

Meanwhile, the Spiridellises are sanguine about their creative success.

''If this had been a record and we had sold 65 million singles, we'd be rich,'' he said. ''But we're happy with the reaction. It's been a really divisive election season. People were ready to laugh. We just happened to be the people out there.''

Photos: From left, Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, who graduated from Marlboro High School, have gotten 70 million Web hits for their animated song parodies that lampoon politics. (Photo by Monica Almeida/The New York Times)